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Men were playing on fiddles, crowds of men and boys were dancing. By some flaring light others were playing cards or dominoes. The two threaded their way quickly along, Jeanne with her head and face nearly hidden by the big kerchief that was like a shawl. "How queer it was, Pani!" and she laughed. Her eyes were like stars in their pleasure. "And to think Monsieur St. Armand has sent me a message!
What! the Pani remained so calm, she neither looked terrified nor changed colour? Why, she was even smiling like an angel from heaven. She would have to get to the bottom of this. So she quickly said in a bold, resolute voice: "I had only drunk some of the coffee which the Pani herself had made; I can't imagine how that could have made me so ill."
There were several neighbors ready to perform the last offices, and now Jeanne took all the children out under the tree. Louis Marsac returned, presently, and offered his help in any matter, crowding some money into the poor, widowed hand. Jeanne he could see nowhere. Pani was busy. The next day he paid M. Loisel a visit, and stated his wishes.
That noon Madame De Ber said to her husband, "Jeanne Angelot improves greatly. Perhaps the school will do her no harm. She is rather sharp with her replies, but she always had a saucy tongue. A girl needs a mother to correct her, and Pani spoils her." "She will have quite a dowry, I have heard," remarked her husband. Pierre flushed a little at this pleasant mention of her name.
"We have both been asleep," said the woman. "And now is it not time to go home?" "Oh, look at the long shadows. They are purple now, and soft dark green. The spirits of the wood have trooped home, tired of their dancing." She rose and gave herself a little shake. "Pani," she exclaimed, "I saw some beautiful flowers before noon, over on the other side of the stream.
"But when I turn away something calls me, and when I go there I do not like it. They want me to go among the sisters, to be a nun perhaps, and that I should hate." "At present you are doing a daughter's duty, let that suffice. Pani would soon die without you. When a new work comes to hand God will make the way plain for you." Jeanne gave an assenting nod.
Jeanne tried to explain the wonderful things that had happened, but Pani's age and her limited understanding made it a hard task. "Thy mother was dead long ago," she kept saying. "And they will take thee away, little one " "Then they will take you, too, Pani; I shall never leave you. I love you. For years there was no one else to love. And how could I be ungrateful?"
For a fortnight she lay in Wenonah's cabin, paying no attention to anything and would have refused sustenance if Wenonah had not fed her as a child. Then one day she seemed to wake as out of a trance. "They have not found her my little one?" she said. Wenonah shook her head. "Some evil spirit of the woods has taken her." "Can you listen and think, Pani?" and she chafed the cold hand she held.
Somebody had already been there yesterday, and the day before yesterday as well. How they all ran after her. But they had no luck, thought Jendrek with a broad grin on his face. The Pani bestowed the kindest look on him, and she gave him bacon every day in the kitchen, and an extra glass of gin as well. God bless the good woman! Böhnke stepped into the stone passage, but nobody came.
"It is going to be a great day!" declared Jeanne, as she sprang out of her little pallet. There were two beds in the room, a great, high-post carved bedstead of the Bellestre grandeur, and the cot Jacques Pallent, the carpenter, had made, which was four sawed posts, with a frame nailed to the top of them. It was placed in the corner, and so, out of sight, Pani felt that her charge was always safe.
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